You can take the man out of Summerhill...

A SUMMERHILL man who emigrated to the USA some 68 years ago will be celebrating his 100th birthday in his adopted home of Illinois next week.

Pearse Fagan will be enjoying a week of family celebrations, but despite all the fun and excitement, it will also be very important that he gets his weekly copy of the Meath Chronicle.
Pearse believes the week would not be the same without reading the Chronicle, which is sent to him each week by Summerhill man John Marron.
He has also kept close ties with his home of Summerhill, reading the paper every week and, until this year, he came home every year to visit.
“He keeps abreast of all the news and knows more about the Summerhill and Meath football teams fortunes than I do,” says his nephew, John Fagan.
Pearse was born on 30th July 1918 and he’s still sharp as a tack, and full of wit and wisdom.
He was the eldest of Thomas and Elizabeth Fagan’s children and was one of seven brothers and sisters.
His youngest sibling, Jerome still lives in Summerhill and his sister, Bernie lives in Tramore.
Jerome and his late brothers, Niall and Ollie were heavily involved in Summerhill GAA and his late brother John managed and and played hurling for Baconstown Hurling club before they joined with Enfield to become Na Fianna.
He also had a sister Maureen and a brother Tom, who died as a baby.
They grew up on a small mixed farm and he went to National School in Dangan until he was 15.
Pearse worked with his uncle, Jack Tracy and his sons, Tommy, Paddy and Rory in odd jobs around Meath and it was his first taste of carpentry which he enjoyed tremendously.
He left for Dublin at 16 where he trained as a carpenter in Bolton Street Technical School and at 19 went to Parnell Square where he learned bookeeping and advanced mathematics. After school he found work with a lawyer who needed help keeping books and running other errands.
He left for England when he was 21 at the start of the second world war and worked on the buses in Birmingham.
He met his wife Esther, a native of Roscommon, in England. She was working in the ambulance service during the war and they married in September 1944.
When Esther was pregnant with her first child, they moved home to Summerhill, as Pearse wanted his children born in Ireland. They had three children, Finola, Colin and Patsy.
He continued to work in England but after nine years of travelling back and forth they decided to move to the US.
Pearse travelled on ahead and a year later was joined by his family.
They rented in Chicago for a while, but then built a home in Addison, Illinois, 20 mile west of Chicago, where he lives to this day.
The Fagan family settled down there and Pearse and Esther watched their family grow. Today Pearse has 10 grandchildren from 48 years to 23 years old, 14 great-grandchildren from 23 years to 13 months and a one year-old great-great granddaughter.